Back when I started to use the Internet in 1988, there was a simple
way to get answers to your technical questions. You would go onto
"Netnews", also known as Usenet, and you would post your question to
one of the forums. There were forums, or "newsgroups", on nearly
every possible topic, from programming languages to religions to
humor. more>>

I was chatting with a Windows-using friend recently, and he wanted to
try Linux on one of his older computers. I always like those sorts of
conversations, and so I kept chatting, walking him through setting up
Unetbootin to create a USB installer and so on and so on. Unfortunately, he wasn't
able to get the USB drive to boot. more>>

Organizations supporting Linux operating systems commonly have a need
to build customized software to add or replace packages on production
systems. This need comes from timing and policy differences between
customers and the upstream distribution maintainers. more>>

In the September 2014 issue, I mentioned my new router, and I got a lot of e-mail messages asking
about how well it works. I can say without hesitation it's the nicest
router I've ever owned. And, it was less than $100!
more>>

How many times you have been hit by unit tests failing because of environment
differences between you and other team members? How easy is it to build
your project and have it ready for development? Vagrant provides a
method for creating repeatable development environments across a range of
operating systems for solving these problems. more>>

In the past, I've covered various astronomy packages that help you
explore the universe of deep space. But, space starts a lot closer to
home. It actually begins a few hundred miles above your head. There are
lots of things in orbit right above you. more>>

Sometimes, when the clock hits 3:00am, and you've been in the server
room since 9 o'clock the previous day, you start to get a little
batty. That's the only explanation I have for programs like cowsay
in Linux. Still, I'm glad they're there, because life wouldn't be nearly
as fun without them. Here's a quick list of silly Linux programs off the
top of my head. more>>

SUSE and MariaDB (the company formerly known as SkySQL!) officially teamed up today, joining forces with IBM Power Systems, in a partnership that promises to expand the Linux application ecosystem. According to sources at SUSE, customers will now be able to run a wider variety of applications on Power8, increasing both flexibility and choice while working within existing IT infrastructure. more>>

Kernel configuration has become more and
more complex through the years with
the proliferation of new drivers, new hardware and specific behaviors that
might be needed for particular uses. It has reached about 3,000 config
options, and that number will only increase.
more>>

Sometimes a gift just falls in your lap. This month, it came in the form of an
e-mail out of the blue from Jared Nielsen, one of two brothers (the other
is J.R. Nielsen) who created The
Hello World Program, "an educational web series making computer science fun and
accessible to all". more>>

I have been focusing a lot on security and privacy issues in this year's
columns so far, but I realize some of you may expect a different
kind of topic from me (or maybe are just tired of all this security
talk). Well, you are in luck. more>>

I'm sure many of you have at least heard of Tiny Core Linux—legends
of how small it is, how little it takes it to run a system with it
and even now how it's been ported to run on Raspberry Pi. It's an esoteric
minimalist distribution. more>>

Several computer algebra systems are available to Linux users. I
even have looked at a few of them in this column, but for this issue, I discuss
OpenAxiom. OpenAxiom actually is a fork of Axiom. Axiom originally
was developed at IBM under the name ScratchPad. Development started in 1971,
so Axiom is as old as I am, and almost as smart. more>>

Consider this traditional scenario: in today's competitive world, dynamic business
requirements need flexible and rapid provisioning of IT resources. Along
with flexibility, traditional IT environments need new resources to
support the dynamic workloads of applications. more>>

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